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I'd wanna hear what it's like from a local these days, but a 30 minute work hour commute in Austin pre-covid would be from Ben White to Downtown. Cedar Park to downtown would be an easy hour and some change back then.
Tech transplants pricing people out is a very real thing though. Even though coastal transplants might see it as a bargain, Austin has never been cheap relative to TX. Since 2020 that gap has gone up dramatically. In 2016 I was renting a 4 bedroom 1800 sqft house in Hyde Park for $2700/mo all in. The current Zestimate for that house is 1.2 million.
There's a reason the biggest net migration to San Antonio is from Austin by a pretty good margin.
If it took an hour to get from Cedar Park to Austin at any point, then their infrastructure must be really primitive because there just aren't that many people in the metro to warrant that kind of daily gridlock.
If it took an hour to get from Cedar Park to Austin at any point, then their infrastructure must be really primitive because there just aren't that many people in the metro to warrant that kind of daily gridlock.
It just grew too fast for the infrastructure that exists. That plus the lack of east-west routes probably has something to do with it.
This is a side by side of Austin and SA at 9:15 ish this morning. It's always 35/360/Mopac thats gridlocked in Austin. I don't remember traffic out by Cedar Park ever being that bad, but I also never spent much time out there.
Idk what's going on on the east side of SA. The areas with bad traffic here are usually 1604/I-10 and 410 between I10 and 281. Must be construction or a wreck.
If you look around Austin's burbs, it looks like a laborer (with full time employment) could buy a nice big, new house with an easy sub 30 minute commute to Austin. Which is why their claims of an "insane" housing market should not be taken seriously.
Seattle is a different story, as their market will continue to get tighter with suburbs being seen as increasingly as/more desirable than the city, but both areas should be attracting people with those wages.
What do you think a laborer makes in Austin? 10-12 an hour?
If it took an hour to get from Cedar Park to Austin at any point, then their infrastructure must be really primitive because there just aren't that many people in the metro to warrant that kind of daily gridlock.
I went to UT about 15 years ago...and while the population almost doubled since then, the roads are literally the same.
Oh, and Austin was congested even back then . Mopac and I-35 were parking lots back then, and not surprised that it's a worse parking lot nowaday.
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Either way Austin is still somewhat affordable if you're willing to deal with congestions with the average salary being way up there, especially when you compare to other MSA like SD or LA on this list.
I went to UT about 15 years ago...and while the population almost doubled since then, the roads are literally the same.
Oh, and Austin was congested even back then . Mopac and I-35 were parking lots back then, and not surprised that it's a worse parking lot nowaday.
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Either way Austin is still somewhat affordable if you're willing to deal with congestions with the average salary being way up there, especially when you compare to other MSA like SD or LA on this list.
Traffic in Austin is madness
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. Mopac and I-35 were parking lots back then, and not surprised that it's a worse parking lot nowaday.
